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Chummymummy, try having 'thumb...' as the start of your word.

17 - Yielding, Guy was nabbed before he----(5) lit-e. Must be "lithe". Can anybody explain why, please.

I have LITHE also. Thanks for help everyone. I'm now complete. They may not be all correct but they all fit. That's good enough for me on this one.

Wasn't Guy nabbed just before he "lit" the fuse?

Whew! I've just finished after being thrown by 18: I had 'mammee' (marmalade tree), and nothing would fit around it!

Just started this and only have 14 answers, but seem to have a handle on the grid. For 4: Half of cash spent in coin? Its delights were imaginary (8), what immediately sprang to mind was Cockayne, but I don't get the wordplay. Is there an alternate eight-letter spelling, or am I just plain wrong?
For 1: Pack leader housed in the Lakelands (5), alpha seems too obvious to be right; ditto re wordplay.
For 32: Excellent spinner not on full length of pitch (short) (8), I have topnotch but don't get the CH in it. Hope that pitch is a cricket reference or something.

Hi, aristo. The alt. spelling is COCAIGNE (I hope I remember it correctly);the 2nd is AKELA (hidden); the last -- CH simply as "pitch(short)",surely? If you need any more help, I'm around this afternoon.

Thanks so much, greedy. Hope this is interrupted by our own puzzle! Had even more fun with it this time. Have you gotten around to Chain Links?

For 32, the "pitch (short)" is indeed CH, but I believe this to be the abbreviation of chain (as in the measure of 22 yards), being the length of a cricket pitch.

So it IS cricket! Baseball has it all over your version in providing entertainment that's the closest thing to being dead. Looking forward to your clue challenges, peterm. Thanks!